Swimming injuries

Some ways that swimmers can increase the risk of an injury are by overuse of a specific part of the body, lacking crucial flexibility and strength, etc.

Pain associated with swimmer's shoulder often starts as an irritating soreness following swim training and can persist, escalating to a constant, intense pain that limits shoulder mobility and ultimately athletic performance.

The primary cause of swimmer's shoulder is faulty biomechanics due to improper swim stroke technique.

Some treatment methods include; warming up slowly prior to training, avoiding strokes and positions that cause pain (butterfly or freestyle), fixing any bad technique that could be causing the pain, adjusting the distance and frequency of training to avoid further overuse of the muscles, discontinue the use of paddles, increase kick sets to allow the shoulder to rest however limit the use of kickboards and avoid pulling sets.

Increase the use of fins to assist with maintaining a good body position and to avoid drag, avoid dry land upper body weight training, ice the shoulder daily, consider the use of anti-inflammatory creams and medicines, and seek the advice of a medical professional.

[4] In order to prevent the development of knee pain and inflammation of the knee muscles it is recommended that swimmers use a well-designed strength and stretching program, warm up adequately, use the correct breaststroke kick technique, gradually build up the distance of breaststroke swimming and a balanced training program that focuses on not only breaststroke and also has training sessions that allows for adequate recovery of the knee muscles to prevent fatigue of the muscles causing overuse, inflammation, and pain.